Blog Posts by Glamour Magazine

I am not a great cook, and usually, I attribute that to the fact that I was not born with a silver ladle, that cooking is hard, that life is unfair and that the sun was in my eyes and I wasn't ready. But the actual reason is probably because I am kind of clumsy, I tend to act before I think, which means no sensible planning ahead, and I panic when things go wrong. These are not good traits to have in the kitchen, as it turns out, but they can be overcome! Ali, of Divine Domesticity, has five commonsensical, and yet full of forehead-smacking well, duh! Why did I not think of that? tips for those of us who can't figure out why everything seems to go mysteriously wrong so often when we're at the stove. Are you actually a rockstar? Well, anyone can use these little reminders that make your life easier in the kitchen, and dinner a less slightly terrifying, much more pleasant experience full of foresight and fewer terrible explosions.

Get started with these recipes as easy as one, two,

Read More »from Delicious: Five tips to keep terrible cooks from despairing

In 13 years of living in New York City, I learned how to squeeze my life into small but chic rental apartments. I'm so glad that's over.

I've always pooh-poohed the American need for space. Except for a brief ill-fated detour into into rural living, I've always seen myself as a city mom who can live a compact but cosmopolitan existence and stuff myself, my slender husband, and single small child into the weensiest habitat. Playrooms? Puh-leez. How very suburban.

Famous last words. I'm now all about playrooms. Obsessed, in fact.

Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest, where it rains and then it rains and then there's like, rain, I've finally realized that there is nothing--nothing!--quite like extra inside space to take the crab out of the crabmommy and the kid. Thankfully I now have the luxury of such a room. Crabkid calls it her "clubhouse." I call it, affectionately, "the dungeon." It's the best thing that ever happened to us. It is also the ugliest room you ever saw in

Read More »from Crabmommy: How I learned to appreciate the playroom

Honestly, I know I'm pushing my luck here, and even I'm barfing a little over my bride-to-be self, but thankfully this whole wedding situation will be over in about 10 days (yes, that means I can now obsessively check Weather.com's 10-day forecast--kill me). But...until then: Updates! After an exhaustive search, I finally settled on a coat to wear over my dress. It's from Lela Rose, but looks vintage, and it's lightweight and woven with pretty gold thread. I also scrolled through perhaps 792 vintage frame purses before I came across this ladylike little beaded number (though I may try to win this ostrich Kelly bag as a backup). And, last, I wanted a big honkin' cocktail ring, and am still torn between this one from Kenneth Jay Lane and a less splashy clustered pearl style. And that, ladies, may be my last eBay word on weddings. Fingers crossed.

Cocktail rings and other amazing accessories--all yours for under $100!

More from Lucky:

• The Under $150 Fall Bag Guide
  16 favorite

Read More »from More Bride-y Madness

See what happens when Kim test-drives a pair of Spanx.

Related: Victoria's secret is triple layer spandex

More from Elastic Waist and SELF:

• 7 looks that can go from the office to the gym, no locker room required
• FYIi: There have always been fat people, curvy people, skinny people, and middle of the road people
• 20 Superfoods for weight loss
  It's time for a new slim-down mantra: Eat more to weigh less. No joke!
• Subscribe to Self for Just $1 an issue. Free Pink Striped Tote!

Read More »from A day with Spanx

Jack-o-lanterns and cheesecloth ghosts getting old? Try this clever (and easy) kid-friendly project. --Emma Hardy

Because they have magnets attached, you can put these spiders on a thin surface (curtains, tablecloth, etc.) and use a second magnet to move it around to scare your friends.

Head over to cookiemag.com for more clever craft ideas Halloween.

MATERIALS

• Thick black yarn
• Scissors
• Paper plate
• Pencil
• Black tempera paint
• Paintbrush
• Glue
• Spatula
• Buttons for the eyes
• Two magnets for each spider
• 
  

1. Cut a length of yarn about 12" long and set aside. Have the kids wrap wool around their hands about 50 times (loosely so that it comes off easily).
2. Carefully remove the yarn--keeping the shape--and put it on the table. Take the length of 12-inch piece from Step 1 and tie it around the middle of the bundle.
3. Cut through the loops at each end of the wool bundle to form a pom pom. (You can trim any ends that are too

Read More »from Clever, kid-friendly Halloween craft ideas

Dr. Kate,

I had unprotected sex a few days ago (oral and penetration). I know it's stupid and I've been alternately kicking and lecturing myself ever since. What I'd like to know is this: how soon can I get tested for STDs? I don't mind going in several times to get the tests, since I know different things show up at different times, it's just I'd like to start getting answers to my worries as soon as possible. Thanks for your help.

Stupid and Worried

Dear SAW, You're not stupid--we all get careless with something in our lives now and again. You just need to take care of yourself going forward. Different infections do show up at different times, so you're looking at a few trips to your gyno over the next six months. There's no single right answer, but I would recommend:

• testing for chlamydia and gonorrhea (cervical swab or a urine test) and trichomonas (vaginal swab) in two weeks

• blood testing for syphilis and HIV in 3 months

• blood testing for HIV again in 6 months

Read More »from Ask Dr. Kate: I recently had unprotected sex. What should I do?

Ok, so maybe voted is the wrong word, but just last week my friend and I were talking about how most of the guys we knew found unfussy hairstyles the most attractive kind of 'do. Up, down, it doesn't matter to them, just long as the hairstyle didn't look like it had taken hours to create and wouldn't leave tons of product in their hands if they happened to run their fingers through it. That's great and all we said to ourselves, but what these dudes don't know is that a fuss-free look takes just as long to style as a super slick 'do! (Just ask the hair and makeup teams at Isabel Marant's show, who had to show up 3 hour before the runway show started to style the hair of 20+ models!)

Of course, a few of you with good hair karma can achieve the sexy, tousled "I just got lucky" hairstyle by just rolling out of bed, but that's just about as likely as a one-night stand leading to true love. (i.e. it happens, but mostly just in movies starring Cameron Diaz.)

For the rest of us, we've

Read More »from Sexy Bed Head Hair Voted Most Appealing To Guys

You're supposed to go to the gym every day. Okay, five days a week. Okay, three times a week--we know you're busy. And I think that too often we decide that if we don't make it to the gym, we fail, return to start and to a pair of pants that don't fit the way we want them to and a heart that will explode before we're drawing social security and so we might as well dip our spoons right into that bucket of lard anyway, right? (Here's how we do manage to make it to the gym even when we really don't want to go.)

It's a trap I fall into every day. But, unless I've made very odd vows to very strange religious sects and should really be revaluating my social circle, I am not sitting perfectly still in dark rooms every day. I'm moving, active, using my body more or less every moment of every day, from my fingers on the keyboard to the march down the hallway into the kitchen for another glorious and life-saving cup of go-juice. We are all using our bodies the way they were built to be used,

Read More »from Can you burn lots of calories without exercising?